Unlocking Value from Data: Tearing Down Silos with a Single Operating System for Data Organizations
In recent years, the volume of data available to organizations has increased exponentially, while the concrete processes for extracting meaningful insights remains an escalating challenge.
But if companies understand the ever growing importance of data to their growth, why is extracting value still a problem?
In this article, we’ll illuminate how emerging technologies, such as Large Language Models (LLMs), can address the challenges experienced by today's data leaders, business users and enterprise stakeholders, and why it’s important to have a single operating system to run the business side of your data organization.
Let’s take a look at some of the challenges that need to be addressed.
The data usage conundrum
Imagine buying an expensive piece of machinery for your factory but having no idea who uses it, or for what purpose. This is the reality many organizations face when it comes to their data. Companies often find themselves in the dark about the usage of their data assets, both those they own and those they acquire. This lack of visibility hinders their ability to measure the effectiveness of their data utilization and subsequently, make informed decisions about future investments.
How much should you spend at renewal time if you have no idea what's working and what isn't? How can you track the value of your internal data if you don't know who is leveraging it and how? These questions underscore the pressing need for a robust data management and discovery strategy that can provide these insights.
The quest for expertise
Compounding this challenge is the difficulty faced by employees when they start working with data. In an ideal world, they would be able to reach out to internal experts to expedite their tasks. However, the reality in most organizations is that there is no clear way to identify who these experts are.
The lack of a structured process for knowledge sharing within organizations often leads to inefficiencies, as employees find themselves re-inventing the wheel instead of learning from those with prior experience.
The data access maze
Yet another hurdle is the lack of awareness about the data that is available to employees. In many cases, organizations lack a comprehensive list of their data assets and associated use cases, or they implement a static data catalog for valuable employees to spend hours trawling through different datasets with zero context.
We’ve seen it in almost every enterprise organization we speak to; talented people wasting time browsing lists, trying to decipher how a dataset has been used previously, if it has any value and whether it will serve their use case.
This is a major blocker in data enabling an organization, as it leaves employees in the dark about what they can access and how. This gap not only hampers productivity but also leads to missed opportunities for data-driven decision making.
The search dilemma
Even when a data catalog exists, searching across internal and external data is overwhelming. Most data catalog systems are keyword or category-based, creating a situation where you need to know the exact keyword to find what you're looking for.
But what happens when an employee doesn't know the right keyword, or the short dataset description mentions a similar concept but not the exact keyword? This creates a disconnect, making the search process arduous and often fruitless.
These challenges paint a picture of the complex landscape of data management and discovery within organizations today. They underscore the need for a solution that can bridge these gaps, providing visibility, facilitating knowledge sharing, enhancing data accessibility, and optimizing the data search process.
In the following sections, we'll explore how to address these pain points, empowering organizations to navigate the data divide.
Mitigating these challenges with a unified operating system
The challenges we've outlined above point towards a need for a unified, intelligent solution that can bridge these gaps and empower organizations to leverage their data effectively.
Nomad Data's suite of products is designed to do just that. By providing a single platform for managing and discovering data, Nomad Data not only simplifies the complex data ecosystem but also enables leaders to transform their data org from a cost center to a revenue driver.
The first step: Data Relationship Manager (DRM)
The DRM is the first step in putting your data organization on the path to data mastery. It centralizes all data assets, communications, internal annotations, vendor use cases, and previous insights derived from data. Like a CRM, DRM tracks all interactions around data, providing a complete picture of the data's usage and impact
It drives more informed and strategic decision-making by enabling business users to understand what insights have been garnered from a dataset, what conclusions have been drawn, and whether a dataset is even suitable or can be replaced. It completely cuts out any guesswork, and removes the barrier between data and business outcomes.
With DRM, all users can derive value from all data assets, proving essential for organizations grappling with data silos and out of control data expenses.
Data enable your workforce: Enterprise Data Discovery (EDD)
Initially, the goal is to foster a comprehensive, company-wide understanding of your relationships with data vendors and datasets via DRM. Following this, the next step is to ensure that the desired data can be located promptly and effortlessly whenever needed.
EDD transcends the limitations of traditional data catalogs by pairing specific business use cases with relevant internal and external datasets. It offers a single interface where anyone in the organization can request the data they need without knowing where or how to find it.
This ease of access empowers every knowledge worker, democratizing data usage across the organization. By placing data directly into the hands of those who need it, EDD addresses the data access maze and search dilemmas organizations often face.
Both DRM and EDD sit within Nomad Data’s single intelligent portal, empowering both data leaders and business users to access the data they need from a single source of truth.
Can’t find the data internally? Enter Connect
When internal data sources fall short, Connect steps in to bridge the gap. It enables users to form new relationships with over 2,000 external data providers in Nomad’s network, bringing a world of data to their fingertips in a matter of hours. By connecting your organization to thousands of data vendors, Connect helps you find the right data for every business, investment, or product challenge, even if it’s not already in house.
Connect also saves time and resource budget by eliminating the countless hours spent searching for data and evaluating numerous options. It provides peace of mind to business users and data leaders with its comprehensive coverage: if the data exists for sale, Nomad Data will connect you to it, ensuring that all stones have been unturned.
Nomad Data: Your data workshop
Think of Nomad Data's complete array of products - including DRM, EDD, Connect and Document Search - as a comprehensive data workshop. Our suite of tools, all centralized under one roof, has been designed to overcome the challenges faced by today's data organizations.
Like a well-stocked workshop, Nomad Data's unified platform offers every tool necessary for leaders to achieve data mastery: managing, discovering, and fully harnessing the power of their data. With this single source of truth for data management, you’re equipped to showcase your value and drive substantial cost savings for the organization. This is how digital transformation is achieved; not with a cluttered toolbox, but with a well-organized, comprehensive data workshop.
Get started today by creating your own Data Relationship Manager (DRM) for free
